


curiosity killed the cat – twice

by randomprose



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Haphephobia - the fear of touching or being touched, Kuroo's POV, M/M, Tsukki is being a weenie as usual and doesn't know how to deal with feelings, Tsukki may or may not be developing a -cringes- crush, and he doesn't know how to deal and so he ~avoids~ and goes "feelings be gone!", mentions of Haphephobia, which in turns drive Kuroo mad because he's a dork who overthinks EVERYTHING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9048814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomprose/pseuds/randomprose
Summary: Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back – or so as the saying goes. Tetsurou’s not so sure because it just seems like ‘satisfaction’ killed him twice. Or alternately: When in doubt, blame Bokuto.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Ahh~ It's been a while. Please have a KuroTsuki fic as a sort of Christmas gift from me. (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ.｡.:*☆
> 
> This is set on the same universe and before [madly, deeply and irrevocably](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8012323)
> 
> (Yes, I am aware this may or may not be an overused play on the saying 'curiosity killed the cat.' I'm a little bit sorry.)

There’s something about Karasuno’s number 11 that bothers Tetsurou.

Granted, he’s the typical grumpy, I’m smart and I know it, too-cool-for-this-shit type of brat and Tetsurou has had his fair share of those to deal with so he can figure him out fairly easily in that regard. But the thing is—the thing is—there’s something else with the tall lanky Karasuno first year that just gets to him – and it’s not even so much as it bothers him as it does…interests him.

The problem lies in the category of which this interest lies.

No, it does not fall under what that stupid owl Bokuto thinks. Tetsurou does not have a _thing_ for Tsukishima, that’s just ridiculous. They’ve only known each other for, what, a couple of months and they’ve done nothing but practice and train for volleyball.

It’s just more have to do with Tsukishima and people – specifically, with regards to the boy’s apparent dislike of any and all human, personal contact.

Normally, this should not be perceived out of the norm. There are just people who are not comfortable with human contact especially with people they are not particularly in familiar terms with. There’s even a scientific term for that, he remembers reading about it once – Haphephobia, a rare and specific fear of touching or being touched.

Take Kenma for example. While not necessarily on the spectrum of being haphephobic, he automatically shies away from people unless he deems them ‘safe’ and ‘tolerable’ whatever his specifications for that are. Tetsurou is not entirely sure how Kenma deemed Hinata ‘tolerable’ (he’d even go so far as to say his friend is _fond_ of the ginger kid) when he normally employs every and all necessary resources and reason to escape the likes of Lev and Bokuto, both of which have the same disposition as Hinata.

But anyway, he digresses, while certain wariness for human contact is normal, Tsukishima’s absolute refusal of it just gets to Tetsurou. And also, it’s exactly because it’s _Tsukishima_ that it just gets to him.

(He refused to dwell on the part why it bothers him because it’s Tsukishima. It just seems like…a dangerous and unknown territory he’s really not equipped to deal with – yet.)

Kenma says he’s being ridiculous.

“Tsukishima just has a wider personal bubble, Kuro. Just because he’s not such a touchy person as you doesn’t mean there’s something’s up with him. Stop making it weird.”

“But, Kenma—!”

“I see the freckled kid help him with stretches all the time. His teammates always pat or slap him on the back or whatever. He’s annoyed but he doesn’t look like he’s disgusted or traumatised.”

Yaku warns him.

“Whatever you do don’t be fucking rude and scare him away. You always do this kind of shit. Stop terrorizing first years for fucks sakes. I quite like Karasuno. Sugawara and Sawamura are nice and if you end up scaring them away with your – God forbid – stupid fixation about this kid I will fucking _annihilate_ you.”

Really, they sound like he’s out to get the kid – which is ridiculous because he’s just curious, okay? He’s not going to jump him or anything for fucks sakes. There’s something about Tsukishima that is just off and Tetsurou’s hunch about these things are almost always right. He just has to find out what the fuck it is.

And he’s going to find out about it even if it’s the last thing he’ll do – at least in this training camp.

 

* * *

 

 Karasuno wins against Ubugawa for their second practice match of the day.

From the other side of the court, Nekoma is against Fukurodani and Tetsurou watches as Tsukishima moves away from Hinata’s attempt to high five him. Bokuto spikes and Nekoma misses the receive. Their score is 29-27 with Nekoma’s lost. On the other side of the net, Bokuto hoots and shoots him a look wiggling his eyebrows suggestively; to what, Tetsurou can only guess. He calls out a penalty lap on autopilot, only half listening to Lev whine as Yaku berates him on the fuck up of the last receive, still watching as Sugawara ruffles Tsukishima’s hair over a towel for a good block. This time, Tsukishima doesn’t flinch even as Sawamura pats him on the shoulder for a job well done and only looked mildly annoyed as Noya and Tanaka pounce on him.

Maybe Kenma’s right. Maybe he is being a little ridiculous. Maybe there’s nothing off about Tsukishima and he’s just reading into it too much. Maybe his hunch was just a glitch and this is one of those rare occasions where he’s wrong.

“You’re staring.” Kenma says beside him as Nekoma starts to dive for a lap of flying falls.

Tetsurou ignores him and focused on not face planting on the floor. He catches Tsuksihima looking at him with a raised brow as he surfaces up and prepares for another dive. He shrugs and when Tsukishima smirks at him he sneers back.

Later during extra practice at the third gym, Tetsurou is correcting Tsukishima’s blocking form while Hinata and Lev tries to receive Bokuto’s spikes on the other side of the court.

“Time your jump to the spiker’s and then raise your arms in an arc as soon as you’re on air. That way you can still block the ball even if it’s a time difference attack. If it’s a feint you can just easily stretch your arms straight for a one touch or have it land on the opponent’s court if you read block on time.”

They have Bokuto do a time difference attack on them and it blew past Tsukishima’s right arm.

“Your arms weren’t in an arc. It should look like a half moon. And put strength on them all the way to your fingertips like this.”

Tetsurou moves to properly position Tsukishima’s arms. He stands behind him and raises both the Karasuno first year’s arms, bending his elbows a little and angling his wrists. He felt Tsukishima tense under him. He moves forward half a step as he shakes away from Tetsurou’s arms and snatches his wrists from his hands.

“You can just show me how it looks, Kuroo-san.”

Tetsurou moves back and tilts his head a little to the side as he shoots him a curious look.

“Yeah. Right.” He moves to stand beside him again shows him the proper stance. “And, like I said, put strength on your arms all the way to your fingers so the ball doesn’t blow your arm off. Bokuto doesn’t really care to control the strength of his spikes.”

Bokuto shouts at him at the other side of the net and they play another three on three. Tsukishima blocks enough of Bokuto’s spikes to irritate him and lose focus. Team Cats win for the night and Tetsurou thinks it’s a nice consolation.

When they were called for dinner (this times, it was Karasuno’s managers who warned them about not getting any dinner if they don’t hurry up) and were cleaning up, Tetsurou continues to observe Tsukishima.

He watches as Akaashi taps him by the shoulder to tell him something, taps him again before leaving him to push the ball cart to the equipment room. Hinata jumps at his back and screams about something or other, Tsukishima just rolls his eyes before untangling the smaller boy’s arms around his neck and off him. They head over to dinner and Tetsurou watches as Bokuto slings an arm over Tsukishima’s shoulders, notices that he doesn’t protest and only shakes off the Fukurodani captain’s arm when they reached the dining hall. After dinner, Hinata pushes Tsukishima by his back to walk faster as an exhausted Lev hangs on to him as they made their way to the baths.

Huh, so maybe there really is nothing off about Tsukishima and he’s just being stupid and presumptuous about him.

But.

When Kuroo puts an arm around Tsukishima as they head off to their respective sleeping quarters, the latter immediately ducks under and away from him, walking briskly and entering Karasuno’s quarters without so much as a good night.  

And Tetsurou thinks there’s something else entirely about whatever it was he thought off about the Karasuno first year.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the training camp, Tetsurou’s eyes followed Tsukishima whenever they can. Sometimes, he’d even manage to automatically spot the tall middle blocker first whenever they’re in the same area. It was almost a habit. Still, unconsciously or not, it’s become apparent to him that this, whatever _this_ may be, is becoming ridiculous even for him.

True to his observations, Tsukishima does not, in fact, hate human contact as much as Tetsurou has hypothesized.  Just the other day, the kid was talking to Lev and Kema, the former’s arm propped on Tsukishima’s shoulder as Kenma leaned close to him to let him watch his game. Karasuno’s libero and buzzed cut wing spiker literally piled over him when they won a close match against Fukurodani and, speaking of Fukurodani, Bokuto had hugged and lifted Tsukishima off his feet praising him on his improved blocking despite his team losing to Karasuno. All of this and Tsukishima never exhibited any signs that he was uncomfortable – irritated at his teammates’ and Bokuto’s antics, but that’s his default anyway and therefore does not count, but otherwise not uncomfortable.

And yet, Tsuksihima still flinches whenever they so much as accidentally bump shoulders in the hallway or brush their arms during blocking at extra practice.

So, Tetsurou keeps his distance. At the same time he doesn’t know why this is bothering him too much. He’s never really cared nor took interest about others like this before. He never really cared if he’s invading people’s personal bubble of whatever as long people doesn’t react violently over it. Heck, he wasn’t even this concerned over Kenma when they first started being friends.

So why the fuck is he so concerned over Tsukishima of all people?

Fukurodani just left the gym to sprint on the hills of Shinzen as punishment. Karasuno is walking to their side of the gym, gladly chattering about how it was such a nice change to not be the ones to sprint under the sun. The Karasuno first years crowd around each other to talk about the match. Tsuksihima receives a towel and a water bottle from their cute blonde manager. He thanks her and even smiles a little back at her and what the fuck what was that that wasn’t the usual condescending ones that was a real smile what the fuck he didn’t know Tsukishima can do that what the actual fuck—

A ball whizzes past the side of his head, narrowly missing his face, and Yaku yells at him after he saves the ball.  Shinzen reaches their match point and Yaku yells at him _to ‘get your head in the game you’re the fucking captain for fucks sakes!’_ and Kenma shoots him a look, sighs and mouths _‘you’re staring again._ ’

Tetsurou blinks and shakes his head. He mutters a quiet apology for spacing out and promises his team he’d get back that point even as he wonders about why he has a feeling that he is so fucked stirring within his guts.

 

* * *

 

The thing with Tetsurou is it doesn’t take him long to figure out things that bothers him.

Going over the past days since the start of the training camp, he carefully backtracked over everything his memory can remember of his current – well, he wouldn’t call it a predicament per se, it’s more of curiosity, as he’s told people including himself.

On their first training camp, Tsukishima was brattier and more reluctant. He’d brushed any and all advances of his and Bokuto’s (that is to say, automatically brush them off), would try not to be included with team victory huddles, keeps a polite distance from everyone else. There was a gradual change in that now that he thinks about it. On their last training camp, Tsukishima seems to have developed a certain level of tolerance. He still keeps a polite distance whenever appropriate but he doesn’t brush him or Bokuto off as much. He willingly goes to team huddles even high fives the more rambunctious members of Karasuno and doesn’t mind too much when people lean a little too close.

On this training camp, it’s even safe to say that Tsukishima is safely broken in, except – except this time, Tsukishima seems to have built a certain level of tolerance for everyone but Tetsurou.

In the mornings when he sees Tetsurou in the shared bathroom, Tsukishima turns and says he’ll just brush his teeth later even when there’s perfectly apt space for him to do his morning routines beside the Nekoma captain. On meal times, whenever his freckled friend is not around, he never considers sitting at Tetsurou’s table despite the fact that his table can clearly accommodate more and instead chooses to park himself beside Lev or Hinata or anyone else really despite not having enough space. At extra practice, he automatically flinches when it looks like Tetsurou will be fixing his form and tenses when he does. And he never goes to the baths, even at the risk of it closing without him taking a bath, if Tetsurou is part of the group.

More than that, he noticed that Tsukishima is making a conscious effort in avoiding him. He’s pretty sure he saw him turn to the other direction whenever they would happen to pass by each other. He never meets his eyes even as Tetsurou tries to catch his gaze and the one time he caught him looking at him, Tsukishima frowned so fiercely one might think Tetsurou said something extremely foul to insult him. He doesn’t talk to him unless it was really necessary like for blocking or anything strictly involving volleyball. Granted they don’t really talk much but their banters are nice and heck, he misses that. They used to have that before – before _this_. It makes him wonder if he did or said something again to offend the kid like last time, but he can’t remember anything as far as the last training camps goes. They don’t even talk outside of training camps so unless he did something pretty fucking stupid, which he really can’t remember anything of, Tetsurou is at a loss.

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that Tsukishima does not, in fact, have a thing about human contact nor does he have anything against the people surrounding him – his team and the rest of the training camp’s population – somehow it’s just with him.

Tetsurou doesn’t know what to do about this realization. He especially does not know what to do about the twisting feeling in his gut and why it makes him angry and wants to fucking cry of all things all at the same fucking time.

 

* * *

 

“Are you haphephobic?”

Tsukishima halts from picking the stray balls at the court as he slowly looks up at Tetsurou, leaning on the ball cart, from where he is crouching on the floor. Bokuto managed to convince them for a last round of practice after dinner before bed and now they’re cleaning up before lights out. Tetsurou takes in the surprise on Tsukishima’s face, his glasses (he switched to his normal ones after practice was over) sliding down a little.

“What?”

“You know, haphephobia, fear of touching or being touched?”

Tetsurou watches as Tsukishima’s brows furrows as he blinks at him. He picks up the ball he dropped earlier before straightening up and dumping the ball on the cart. The look he shot Tetsurou was a cross between confused and wondering if he’s stupid because Bokuto literally had his arm around him a minute ago what the fuck.

“Are you being serious?”

“Well, are you?”

“No, Kuroo-san. Why would you even think that?”

Tsukishima sighs as he rolls the cart as soon as Tetsurou straightens up. He noticed the younger refuses to meet his eyes still and somehow it starts to piss him off again.

“Well, it’s just you seem to be avoiding me and you act like I have the fucking plague whenever I’m around and I guess what I’m trying to say is do you have a problem with me or what?”

“What are you talking about? Please stop asking stupid questions and help with the clean up.”

Tsukishima is still not looking at him, he retrieves a ball and rolls the cart faster. Tetsurou strides toward him quick and tries to stop him by grabbing his arm. Tsukishima automatically flinches almost knocking the cart sideways. There is a sudden realization and mild shock on what just happened reflected on the widening of his eyes as he stares between him and Tetsurou.

“Kuroo-san, I—“

“I see.” Tetsurou remarks, calm despite the turmoil in his chest. “So, do you always flinch when people try to touch you or is it just me?”

At the corner of his eyes, he can see Akaashi ushering Lev and Hinata out the gym doors. Even Bokuto was sensible enough to exit quietly and even held a finger to his mouth to shush Hinata when the first year looked like he was about to ask what was going on. Tetsurou made a mental note to thank those two later, but right now Tsukishima is looking at him with panic in his eyes and he could just hear the gears in his head turning to find a way out and away from him.

“So, Tsukishima-kun.”

He takes a step forward and the blonde takes a step back. Tetsurou would have smirked at this perfect taunting opportunity if the whole thing didn’t make him feel like shit the longer it drag on.

“What is it? Are you just disgusted by me is that it? Are you really that repulsed by me?” He knows the Karasuno middle blocker isn’t exactly friendly with him but this much? “Do you really ha—“ Oh, God he can’t even say the word. It’s making his gut wrench in painful ways and his chest already feels like it’s caving in on his lungs. He feels like he’s gonna puke. “Do you really dislike me that much?”

“N-no! That’s not it at all, Kuroo-san!”

The panic is still clear in Tsukishima eyes mixed with something like fear and alarm. Tetsurou has never seen him loose his cool like this before and it triggers something inside him as he lunges for Tsukishima to grab him by his arms and shake him.

_“Then what is it?!”_

“P-please let go of me, Kuroo-san.”

Tsukishima’s voice is small and quite, nothing like Testurou’s roar of outrage. He meets Tetsurou’s eyes for the briefest of seconds. He catches the flash of urgency in them before Tsukishima looks down but, Tetsurou notices, he doesn’t flinch away from his grip. He can see the tips of Tsukishima’s ears turning a bright shade of red, can see the red travel all the way down to his throat and to his collar bones and the patch of skin he can see as he looks down the younger boy’s shirt. Tetsurou is sure Tsukishima’s face is the same shade of red even without having to see it.

Tsukishima is still not looking at him and seems to be trying to shrink away further in on himself even as he grips Tetsruou’s arms back. He doesn’t flinch out of his grasp or snark or lash out and honestly he’s beginning to worry if maybe he actually broke Tsukishima and—fuck, Sawamura’s going to fucking kill him and—

“It’s not—it’s not like that at all, Kuroo-san.”

“Then what—oh.”

 And suddenly – looking at Tsukishima’s flushed face, the trembling grip he has on Tetsurou’s forearms, his downright refusal to meet his eyes – suddenly, all of it makes sense now and all the fight in him is suddenly drained and he honestly, honestly doesn’t know what to make or do of this realization. Mostly he just feel stupid and confused – but mostly stupid.

“Oh.” Fuck. What the fuck has he done. “Oh, I—yeah, sorry about that. Let’s—let’s finish cleaning up.”

He gently lets go of Tsukishima, winces and feels slightly guilty as he sees him rubbing his arms. He must’ve gripped him hard. He mutters another apology and Tsukishima nods and they continue cleaning the gym in silence. Then after, Tetsurou walks Tsukishima to Karasuno’s sleeping quarters and leaves with a silent bid of good night.

Tetsurou stares at the closed door for a good five seconds until after the light has gone off and he is sure Tsukishima is in bed before walking down to his own team’s quarters. He squats just outside the Nekoma quarter’s hallway, puts his head in between his knees and exhales long and hard because _what the actual fuck._

The realization of why he was so invested in Tsukishima, his apparently false assumption of having a fear of being touched and this somehow morphing into _his_ fear of Tsukishima hating him hits him again like a freight train for the second time tonight and really _what the actual fuck._

“Fuck. Fucking Bokuto, I fucking hate that fucking owl what the fucking fuck.”

Because, shit, maybe he does have a thing for Karasuno’s number 11.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Hey, we should exchange numbers.”

“…why?”

“You know, for blocking and stuff. So, you can ask me about tips whenever.”

“…if you’re just gonna send me memes I swear to God I’m fucking blocking you.”

“Tsukki! I am appalled. I am more sophisticated than that.”

“If sophisticated you mean cat memes?”

“Yea—no? Maybe? Is this a trick question?”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Kuroo here is like me IRL in a way that I always say 'what the actual fuck' like, all the fucking time.
> 
> Some notes about this story:  
> \- Kuroo tried to go for a hug but thought better of it and settled to awkwardly pat Kei on the back. He thinks it’s a good start when the latter didn’t flinch.  
> \- **Kei’s brain** : you gotta put a cat emoji next to Kuroo-san’s name  
>  **Kei** : why?  
>  **Kei’s brain** : you gotta  
> \- On Kei’s phone: Kuroo-san (Wωↀ); On Tetsurou’s phone: Tsukki (⌐□_□) (Later to be changed to ♡Moonshine☾♡)  
> \- They don’t actually talk about blocking tips and Kei sends the occasional memes. Sometimes even during the day that Kuroo has had to control himself from laughing in the middle of class. He swears he’s is doing it on purpose goddamn it Tsukki you little shit.  
> \- Kuroo is always on his phone, giggling and shit, that Bokuto noticed it and found out he’s been texting Tsukki this whole time when he looked over Kuroo’s shoulder. Kuroo refused to give him Tsukki’s number and Bokuto accused him of being stingy and kept on teasing him about his little crush on little Tsukki. Kuroo gave in just to shut him up but he is so _so_ _ **so**_ pissed. He wants to keep Tsukki’s number to himself damn it (the why’s and the irrationality of it all doesn’t matter).  
>  -Kei messaged him about it. “I know you’re the one who gave him my number.” “I’m sorry! He was so annoying I couldn’t stand it!”
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You can check out my other works [here](http://randomprose.tumblr.com/tagged/writing) and [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1592826/proserandom). Hit me up at [Tumblr](https://www.randomprose.tumblr.com)! I do fic prompts. 
> 
> Happy Holidays!! :D


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